Talk:2659: Unreliable Connection

I don’t think this has anything to do with teleconferencing. Am I missing something? 172.70.214.81 22:46, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes. The impliction is that people are expecting you to be available for online communications, and you can use the unreliable Internet connection as an excuse to get out of it. Barmar (talk) 22:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

I think it's more about communication in general. He doesn't want anybody calling him or sending him emails, so by saying he has an "unreliable" connection people might assume it will be hard to get in touch with him.

Back in the day, email was usually configured so that it could easily overcome such unreliability, and it's still doable,[1] but today email for most people is a web or local client-server app, as opposed to a local mail store in a peer-to-peer app. Even people in urban areas can suffer unreliable internet, when squirrels or backhoes gnaw through data cables, copper theives strike, or 5G mind control base stations are congested. 172.70.210.143 23:45, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

This could equally cover other instant communication methods where your availability is advertised (e.g. Whatsapp). It could also be about alleviating the social pressure the subject feels to continuously check and immediately respond to messages (including emails), because the immediacy is already hindered by the spotty connection (cf the standard "I will have limited access to email" out of office line, which gives the account owner psychological permission to check it infrequently). 172.70.85.5 09:02, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

According to a PhET simulator (https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/plinko-probability/latest/plinko-probability_en.html) for this situation, the ideal standard deviation is 1.732 and ideal mean is 6. I don’t feel like doing the calculations :P 172.70.211.134 23:34, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

If we assume 50-50 for each bounce, the probability that internet is off will be about (11 choose 3)/(2^11), or 8%.--Account (talk) 23:51, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

My first thought was, why so complicated? If each of the twelve switches is equally (and solely) likely to be struck by each ball, it's (100/12)% of the time, or 8⅓%.

Although the equal-chance is wrong, so you're definitely doing "end up with exactly 7 bounce rights and 3 bounce lefts, but in any combination" or similar are you? I'd have summed it differently, though. And not sure where the choose 3 comes in... Just one bounce left off any row-end pin 11 sends to 11 if all others bounce right. Three bounces left hits switch 9, not eight. If I'm counting correctly. Or am I doing telegraph-poles/wires miscounting?

Too early in the morning for me to untangle. The only thing I'm sure about is your division by 2^11 (how many total paths there are to get down). 172.70.91.78 05:00, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Me again. I hadn't checked that the transcript (which said it was switch #8) was correct. Have now, and found it to be wrong. Have hence also just corrected the Transcript. So I'm gonna assume your 11-choose-3 is entirely correct after all. ;) 172.70.91.78 05:08, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

To whomever did [2], doesn't [3] prove that symmetrical configurations nearly identical to those shown can produce uniform distributions? They seem to show it's just a matter of horizontal pin spacing. However, I for one can not verify the proof, which uses unusual (novel?) non-Unicode math notation, and a fairly opaque method of proof. 172.70.211.134 00:07, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Not sure, but this Japanese Wikipedia article is fascinating. 172.70.206.213 01:51, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

What is the chance that the ball will bounce off the first pin, go down the outside of the pins and miss all the switches?

Probably quite high if it's a bouncy ball. With idealized physics though it'd just hit the leftmost/rightmost switch. 172.70.254.127 00:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

I would describe the device as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton_board. 172.70.230.109 00:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

I was watching the photo and hover-over text and the image disappeared and "Unreliable Connection" showed up in its place. I don't know how often this happens.

Very neat if not a fluke! Can anyone replicate this experience on https://xkcd.com ? 172.70.211.134 14:21, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

"An added source of humour is that Randall could likely achieve the same effect by looking through the router's settings - which most modern ones have a feature to turn on and off at scheduled times - or via purchasing a smart power strip." But by using these other methods, the connection would still be reliable. If it goes out at regular or pre-scheduled intervals then you know when it will be available or not, hence reliable. I think the joke here is that the contraption does in fact make the connection unreliable. 172.70.114.77 14:18, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Addressed at [4]. Liv2splain (talk) 14:44, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

For real though, isn't this kind of a good idea? Fephisto (talk) 14:34, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Talk to edtech people in the MOOC space and they will tell you asynchronous is worth it, but talk to people who study educational quality factors like time to receive answers to unanticipated questions, and they will have different ideas. Liv2splain (talk) 14:44, 16 August 2022 (UTC)